Hidden Haditha massacre photos expose brutal U.S. military actions in Iraq

Previously undisclosed photographs from the 2005 Haditha massacre, where U.S. Marines killed 24 civilians in Iraq, including women and children, have been made public for the first time. The images were released following a legal battle between the American magazine New Yorker and the U.S. military.

The massacre, which took place on November 19, 2005, was triggered by an attack on a vehicle carrying American soldiers in the town of Haditha. In response, U.S. troops entered nearby homes and killed 24 civilians in a matter of minutes. The victims ranged from a 3-year-old girl to a 76-year-old man. The soldiers reportedly numbered the bodies and photographed them.

The New Yorker reported that it had been fighting a four-year legal battle to obtain these photographs, which the U.S. military had kept hidden from the public for years. The magazine, alongside the families of the victims, sued the military, demanding the release of the photos.

One of the most harrowing images published by the New Yorker shows 5-year-old Zeynep Yunus Salim, shot in the head, with the number “11” written on her back by U.S. soldiers. Another photo depicts a woman named Ayda Yasin Ahmed lying in a pool of blood on a bed, alongside the bodies of her children, Saba (10), Ayşe (3), Zeynep (5), and Muhammed (8).

Another image reveals the youngest victim, 3-year-old Ayse Yunus Salim, with the number “12” marked on her cheek after being shot. In another photograph, a mother named Esma Selman Rasif is seen shot dead beside her 4-year-old son, Abdullah. A note accompanying this image stated that Esma’s left hand was placed over her son’s body, who was shot in the head at close range by a U.S. soldier, from a distance of less than two meters.

The final photograph in the New Yorker’s report shows the bodies of five civilians, who were stopped and killed by U.S. troops while on their way to university.

According to the New Yorker, the only survivor of the massacre was an 11-year-old girl named Safa, who hid in a corner near a bed during the slaughter. Investigation records revealed that one of the perpetrators, Corporal Stephen Tatum, admitted to investigators that he realized the people in the room were women and children before he began shooting. Despite this, he continued to fire.

The 2005 Haditha massacre led to the trial of four U.S. Marines, but all charges were eventually dropped. No soldiers involved in the massacre were ever convicted. At the time, James Mattis, who later became the U.S. Secretary of Defense, praised one of the perpetrators in a letter and defended the soldiers involved, claiming they were “innocent.”